 Chapter four and five of Animal Ghosts. This is a LibriVox recording, all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. This reading by Allison Hester of Athens, Georgia. Animal Ghosts by Elliot O'Donnell. Chapter four. Bulls, cows, pigs, etc. On the Hebrides there comes to me a case of the phantasm of a black bull that, on certain nights in the year, is herd bellowing inside the shed where it was killed. There are many accounts of ghostly cows herd mooing in the moors and boglands of Scotland and Ireland respectively, and not a few cases of whole herds of phantom cattle seen, gliding along one behind the other with silent, noiseless tread. Though I have never had the opportunity of experimenting with cows to see if they are sensitive to the super-physical, I see no reason why they should not be, and I feel quite certain they will participate in the future life. A propus of pigs, Mr. Dyer, in his ghost world, says, Another form of specter animal is the Kirk Grimm, which is believed to haunt many churches. Sometimes it is a pig, sometimes a horse. The haunting specter, being the spirit of an animal, buried alive in the churchyard for the purpose of scaring away the sacrilegious. Mr. Dyer goes on to say that it was the custom of the old Christian churches to bury a lamb under the altar, and that if anyone entered a church out of service time and happened to see a little lamb spring across the choir in vanish, it was a sure prognostication of the death of some child. And if this apparition was seen by the grave-digger, the death would take place immediately. Mr. Dyer also tells us that the Danish Kirk Grimm was thought to hide itself in the tower of a church, in preference to any other place, and that it was thought to protect the sacred buildings. According to the same writer, in the streets of Kroosterberg, a grave sow, or as it was called, a gray sow, was frequently seen, and it was said to be the apparition of a sow formerly buried alive, its appearance foretelling death or calamity. Phantasm of a Goat Mrs. Crow, in her night side of nature, relates one case of a house near Philadelphia, USA, that was haunted by a variety of phenomena, among others, that of a specter resembling a goat. Other extraordinary things happened in the house, she writes, which had the reputation of being haunted, although the son had not believed it and had thereupon not mentioned the report to the father. One day the children said they had been running after such a queer thing in the cellar. It was like a goat, and not like a goat, but it seemed to be like a shadow. This explanation does not appear to be very satisfactory, but as I have heard of one or two other cases of premises being haunted by what, undoubtedly, were the phantasms of goats, I think it highly probable it was the ghost of a goat in this instance, too. The Phantom Pigs of Chiltern Hills A good many years ago there was a story current of an extraordinary haunting by a herd of pigs. The chief authority on the subject was a farmer, who was an eyewitness of the phenomena. I will call him Mr. B. Mr. B., as a boy, lived in a small house called the Moat Grange, which was situated in a very lonely spot near four crossroads, connecting four towns. The house, deriving its name from the fact that a moat surrounded it, stood near the meeting point of the four roads, which was the site of a gibbet, the bodies of the criminals being buried in the moat. Well, the bees had not been living long on the farm before they were awakened one night by hearing the most dreadful noises, partly human and partly animal, seemingly proceeding from a neighboring spinning, and ongoing to a long front window overlooking the crossroads. They saw a number of spotted creatures like pigs screaming, fighting, and tearing up the soil on the site of the criminal cemetery. The site was so unexpected and alarming that the bees were appalled, and Mr. B. was about to strike a light on the tinderbox when the most diabolical white face was pressed against the outside of the window pane and stared in at them. This was the climax. The children shrieked with terror, and Mrs. B., falling on her knees, began to pray, whereupon the face at the window vanished, and the herd of pigs, ceasing their disturbance, tore frantically down one of the high roads and disappeared from view. Similar phenomena were seen and heard so frequently afterwards that the bees eventually had to leave the farm, and subsequent inquiries led to their learning that the place had long borne the reputation of being haunted, the ghosts being supposed to be the earthbound spirits of the executed criminals. Whether this was so or not must, of course, be a matter of conjecture. The herds of hogs may well have been the phantasms of actual earthbound pigs attracted to the spot by a sort of fellow feeling for the criminals, whose gross and carnal natures would no doubt appeal to them. A lane in Hertfordshire was, and perhaps still is, haunted by the phantasm of a big white sow which had accidentally been run over and killed. It was occasionally heard grunting, and had the unpleasant knack of approaching one noiselessly from the rear, and of making the most unearthly noise just behind one's back. Sheep Lams and sheep, possessing finer natures than goats and pigs, would appear to be less earthbound, and in all probability only temporarily haunt the spots that witness their usually barbarous ends. Slaughter horses are haunted by them, as indeed by many other animals. A Scottish moor long bore the reputation for being haunted by a phantom flock of sheep which were always heard bang, plantifully, before a big storm. It was supposed they were the ghosts of a flock that had perished in the memorable severe weather of Christmas, 1880. Here is a case that may be regarded as typical of hauntings by sheep, presumably the earthbound spirits of the sheep, overwhelmed in some great storm or unexpected catastrophe. The Specter Flock of Sheep in Germany During the Seven Years' War in Germany, writes Mrs. Crowe in her nightside of nature, a drover lost his life in a drunken squabble on the high road. For some time there was a sort of rude tombstone with a cross on it to mark the spot where his body was interred, but this has long fallen and a milestone now fills its place. Nevertheless it continues to be commonly asserted by the country people and also by various travelers that they may have been deluded on that spot by seeing, as they imagine, herds of beasts which on investigation proved to be merely visionary. Of course many people look upon this as a superstition, but a very regular confirmation of the story occurred in the year of 1826 when two gentlemen and two ladies were passing the spot in a post carriage. One of these was a clergyman and none of them had ever heard of the phenomenon said to be attached to the place. They had been discussing the prospects of the minister, who was on his way to a vicarage to which he had just been appointed when they saw a large flock of sheep which stretched quite across the road and was accompanied by a shepherd and a long-haired black dog. As to meet cattle on that road was nothing uncommon, and indeed they had met several droves in the course of one day. No remark was made at the moment, till suddenly they looked at each other and said, What's become of the sheep? Quite perplexed at their sudden disappearance, they called to the position to stop and doll got out, in order to mount the little elevation and look around, but still unable to discover them. They now be thought themselves of asking the pastelian where they were, when, to their infinite surprise, they learned that he had not seen them. Upon this they bade him quick in his pace, that they might overtake a carriage that had passed them shortly before and inquire if that party had seen the sheep. But they had not. Four years later a postmaster named Jay was on the same road driving a carriage in which were a clergyman and his wife when he saw a large block of sheep near the same spot. Seeing they were very fine weathers and supposing them to have been bought at a sheep fair that was taking place a few miles off, Jay drew up his reins and stopped his horses turning at the same time to the clergyman to say that he wanted to inquire the price of the sheep, as he intended going the next day to the fair himself. Whilst the minister was asking him what sheep he meant, Jay got down and found himself in the midst of the animals, the size and beauty of which astonished him. They passed him at an unusual rate whilst he made his way through them to find the shepherd, when, on getting to the end of the flock, they suddenly disappeared. He then first learned that his fellow travelers had not seen them at all. So writes Mrs. Crowe and I quote the case in support of my argument that sheep, like horses, cats, dogs and all other kinds of animals, possess spirits and consequently have a future state of existence. I have not yet experimented with sheep, goats or pigs, but I do not doubt that they are more or less sensitive to the super physical influences and possess the psychic faculty of senting the unknown, though not, perhaps, in so great a degree as any of the other animals I have enumerated. End of Chapter 4. Part 2. Wild Animals and the Unknown. Chapter 5. Wild Animals and the Unknown. Apes. The following case of animal hauntings was recorded in automatic writing. I sank wearily into my easy chair before the fire, which burned with a fitful and sullen glow in the tiny grate of my one room bare and desolate, as only the room of an unsuccessful author can be. My condition was pitiable. For the past twelve months I had not earned a cent, and of my small capital there now remained but two pounds toward the hound of starvation from my door. In the moonlight I could perceive all the bareness of the apartment. Would to God fancy, would ride to me on this moonbeam and give me inspiration. It was indeed weird, the silver ethereal path connecting the moon with the earth, and the more I gazed along it, the more I wished to leave my body and escape to the star-lighted vaults. Certainly from a conversation I had once had with a member of the New Occult Society, I believed it possible by concentrating all the mental activities in one channel so to overcome the barriers which prevent the soul from visiting scenes of the ethereal world as to pass materialized to the spot upon which the ideas are fixed. But although I had a say, how many times I do not like to confess, to gain that amount of concentration necessary for the separation of the soul from the body, up to the present all my attempts had been fruitless. Doubtless there had been something, to my newt even for definition, that had interrupted my self-abstraction, a something that had wrecked my venture, just when I felt it to be on the verge of completion. And was it likely that now, when my ideas were misty and vague, I should be more successful? I wanted to quit the cruel bonds of nature and be free, free to roam and ramble, but where? At length as I gazed into the moonlight, I lost all cognizance of the objects around me, and my eyes became fixed on the mountains of the moon which I discovered with a start were no longer specs. I found, to my amazement, I had left my body and was careening swiftly through space, infinite space. The range opened up in front of me, spreading out far and wide, being black and awful, their solemn grandeur lost in that terrible desolation which makes the moon appear like a hideous nightmare. I could see with amazing clearness the sides of the mountains. There were enormous black fissures, some of them hundreds of feet in width, and the more I gazed, the more impressed I grew with the silence. There was no life, there were no seas, no lakes, no trees, no grass, no sighing or moaning of the wind, nothing to remind me of the earth I now found to my terror I had actually quitted. Everything around me was black, the sky, the mountains, the vast pits, the dried-up mouths of which gaped dismally. With the movements of a man in a fit, I essayed to hinder the finesse of my mad plunge. I waved my limbs violently, kicking out and shrieking in the agonies of fear. I cursed and prayed, wept and laughed alternately. Did everything, yet nothing, that could save me from contact with the lone desert so horribly close? Nearer and nearer I approached, until at last my feet rested on the hard-caked soil. For the first few minutes after my arrival I was too overwhelmed with fear to do other than remain stationary. The ground beneath my feet swarmed with myriads of foul and long-legged insects, things with unwieldy pinchers and protruding eyes, things covered with scaly armor, hybrids of beetles and scorpions. I have a distinct recollection of one huge, jointed centipede making a vicious grab at my leg. He failed to make his teeth meet in anything tangible, and emitting a venomous hiss disappeared into a circular pit. Whilst I was the victim of this insect's ferocity, the horizon had become darkened by the shadowy outline of an enormous apish form. I wanted to run away, but could not, and was compelled, sorely against my will, to witness its approach. Never shall I forget the agonies of doubt I endured during its advance. No man in a tiger's den, nor deer tied to a tree awaiting its destroyer, could have suffered more than I did then, and my terror increased tenfold when I recognized the monster. Nippon, a young gorilla that had been under my charge and had given me no end of trouble when I was headkeeper in the zoological gardens at Byrne. I never hated anything so much as I hated that baboon. At my hands it had undergone a thousand subtle torments. I had pinched it, poked it, pulled its hair, frightened it by putting on masks and making all sorts of queer noises. And finally I had secretly poisoned it. And now we stood face to face without any bars between us. Never shall I forget the look of intense satisfaction in its hideous eyes, as its gaze encountered mine. In that strange, forlorn world we faced each other. I, the tyrant once, now the quarry, in the wildness of its glee it capered about like a mad thing executing the most exaggerated antics that augmented my terror. Every second I anticipated an assault, and the knowledge of my fears lent additional fierceness to its gambles. A sudden change in my attitude at length made it cease. The use had returned to my limbs, my muscles were quivering, and before it could stop me I had fled. The wildest of chases then ensued. I ran with a speed that would have shamed a record beater on earth. With extraordinary nimbleness I vaulted over titanic boulders of rocks, jumped across dykes of infinite depth, scurried light lightning over tracks of rough, lacerating ground, and never for one instant felt like flagging. Suddenly, to my horror, I came to an abrupt standstill, and the cry of some hunted animal burst from my lips. Unwittingly, I had run against a huge wall of granite, and escape was now impossible. Again and again I clawed the hard rock until the skin hung in shreds from my fingers, and the blood powdered on the dark soil that in all probability had never tasted moisture before. All this amused my pursuer vastly. It watched with the leisure of one who knows its fish will be landed in safety, and there suddenly came to me, through my olfactory nerves, a knowledge that it was speaking to me in the language of sense. The language I never understood till now was the language of all animals. Reach a little higher, it said. There are niches up there, and you must stretch your limbs. Ha, ha! Do you remember how you used to make me stretch mine? You do? Well, you needn't shiver. Explain to me how it is I find you here. I cannot comprehend, I gasped with a gesticulation that was grotesque. The great beast laughed in my face. How so, it queried, you used to quibble me upon my dull wits. Must I now return the compliment? Ha! There's blood on your hands. Blood, I will lick it up. And with a mocking grin it advanced. Keep off, keep off, I shouted. My God, will this dream never cease. The dream, as you call it, the gorilla jeered, has only just begun. The climax of your horrors has yet to come. If you cannot tell me the purpose of your visit, I will tell you mine. Can your lordship spare the time to listen? I gave no answer. I clutched the wall and uttered incoherent cries like some frightened madman. The gorilla felt the muscles in its hairy fingers and showed its huge teeth. I looked eagerly at my enemy. Come, you haven't guessed my riddle. You are dull tonight. It said lightly, that old wine of yours made you sleep too soundly. Don't let me disturb you. I will explain. The moon is now my home. I share it with the spirits of all the animals and insects that were once on your earth. And now that we are free from such as you, free to wander anywhere we like without fear of being shot or caught or caged, we are happy. And what makes us still happier is the knowledge that the majority of men and women will never have a joyous after state like ours. They will be earthbound in that miserable world of theirs and compelled to keep their old haunts scaring to death with their ugly faces, all who have the misfortune to see them. There is another fate in store for you, however. Do you know what it is? It paused. No sound other than that, occasioned by its bumping on the soil, broke the impressive hush. Do you know? It said again. Well, I will tell you. I am going to kill you right away, so that your spirit, its all nonsense to talk about souls, such as you have no soul, will be earthbound here, here forever, and will be a perpetual source of amusement to all of us animal ghosts. It then began to jabber ferociously, and crouching down, prepared to spring. For heaven's sake, I shrieked, for heaven's sake. But I might as well have appealed to the wind. It had no sense of mercy. Ha, ha, it screamed. What a joke! What a splendid joke! Your wit never seems to degenerate. Haggusson, I am wondering if you will be as funny when you are a ghost. Get ready. I am coming. I am coming. And as the sky deepened to an awe-inspiring black, and the stars grew larger, brighter, fiercer, and the great lone deserts appealed to me with a force unequaled before, it sprang through the ear. A singing in my ears and a great bloody mist rose before my eyes. The wailing and screeching of a million souls was born in loud, protracted echoings through the drum of my ears. Men and women with evil faces rose up from a crag and boulder to spit and tear at me. I saw creatures of such damning ugliness that my soul screamed aloud with terror. And then, from the mountaintops, the bolt of heaven was let loose. Every spirit was swept away like chaff before the first of wind that, hurling and shrieking, bore down upon me. I gave myself up for lost. I felt all the agonies of suffocation. My lungs were torn from my palpitating body. My legs wrenched round in their sockets. My feet whirled upwards in that gust of devilish air. All excruciating, damning pain and pro-temperor I knew no more. N.B. It was subsequently ascertained by my friend, the late Mr. Subton, that a man named Huggesson, who had been for a short time headkeeper at Zoological Gardens, had been found dead in bed by his landlady, with a look on his face so awful that she had fled shrieking from the room. The death was, of course, attributed to syncope, but my friend, who, by the way, had never heard of Huggesson before he received the foregoing account through the medium of planchette, told me, and I agreed with him, that from similar cases that had come within his experience it was most probable that Huggesson had, in reality, projected himself and had perished in the manner described. No more improbable than the above story is that sent me by my old school friend, Martin Tristram, who died last year. I style it the case of Martin Tristram. It is reproduced from a magazine published some three years ago. After Martin Tristram once took up spiritualism, his visits to me became most erratic, and I not only never knew when to expect him, but I was not always sure, when he did come, that it was he. This sounds extraordinary to see a man as assuredly to recognize him, not always, by no means always. There are circumstances in which a man loses his identity, when his ego is supplanted by another ego, when he ceases to be himself, and assumes an individuality which is entirely different from himself. This is undoubtedly the case in madness, in facility, epilepsy, so-called total loss of memory through cerebral injury, hypnotism, sometimes in projection when the astral body gets detained, and also, not infrequently, in investigating peculiar instances of psychic phenomena. But if the astral body has been evicted from its carnal home, wither has it gone? And what is the nature of the thing that has taken its place? Ah, these are indeed puzzles, puzzles I am devoting a lifetime to solve. There have been moments when unseen hands have gradually begun to pull aside the obscuring veil, when the identity of the usurping spirit has seemed on the verge of being disclosed to me, and I have been about to be initiated into the greatest and most zealously guarded of all secrets. There have been times, I say, when my occult researches have actually brought me to this climax, but up to the present I have invariably been disappointed. The curtain has suddenly fallen, the esoteric ego has shrunk into its shell, and the mystery surrounding it has remained impenetrable. This is but one, albeit perhaps the most striking of the many methods through which the super-physical endeavors to get in immediate contact with the physical. I was unpleasantly reminded of it when Martin Tristram's carnal body came to visit me one night several years ago. I was aware that it was not Tristram. His mannerisms were the same, his voice had not altered, but there was an expression in his eyes that told of a very different spirit from Martin's dwelling within that body. The night being cold he closed the door carefully, and crossing the room to where I sat by the fire, threw himself in an easy chair, and gazed meditatively at me. My rooms in Bloomsbury were not lonely. They had more than their share of brawling brass on either side. There were no gloomy recesses or ghost suggestive cupboards, and I never once experienced in them the slightest apprehension of sudden super-physical manifestations. Yet I cannot help saying that as I met that glance from the pseudo Tristram's eyes I felt my flesh began to creep. He sat so long in silence that I began to wonder if he ever meant to speak. The secret of success in seeing certain classes of apparitions, he said at length, to a very great extent lies in sympathy, sympathy, and now for my story I will tell you in the third person. I looked at Tristram's face in dismay, the third person, yes, the third person, he gravely rejoined, and under the circumstances the only person. You see, it is now close on midnight. I looked at the clock, great heavens, what he had said was correct. A whole evening had slipped by without my knowledge. He would, of course, have to stay the night. I suggested it to him. My dear fellow, he replied with an odd smile. Don't worry about me. I am not dependent on any trains. I shall be home by two o'clock. I shivered. A drought of cold air had in all probability stolen through the cracks of the ill-fitting window frames. You have on one of your queer moods, Martin, I expostulated, to be home by two o'clock you must fly, but proceed at all costs the story. Tristram raised an eyebrow, a true sign that something of special interest would follow. You know, Brookes? He began. I nodded. Very well then, he went on. Exactly a week ago, Martin Tristram arrived there from Antwerp. The hour was late, the weather boisterous. Tristram was tired, and any lodging was better than none. Hailing a four-wheeler, he asked the Jehu to drive him to some decent hotel where the sheets were clean and the tariff moderate, and the fellow, gathering up the reins, took him at a snail's pace to a medieval-looking tavern in La Rue Croissant. You remember that street? Perhaps not. It is quite a back street, extremely narrow, very torturous, and miserably lighted with a few gas lamps of the usual antique Belgian order. Tristram was too tired, however, to be fastidious. He felt he could lie down and go to sleep anywhere, and what scruples he might have had were entirely dissipated by the appearance of the charming girl who answered the door. It is not expedient to dwell upon her. She plays a very minor part, if, indeed, any in the story. Martin Tristram merely thought her pretty, and that, as I have said, fully reconciled him to taking up his quarters in the house. He has, as you are doubtless aware, a weakness for vivid coloring, and her bright yellow hair, carmine lips, and scarlet stockings struck him impressively as she led the way to his bed-chamber, where she somewhat reluctantly parted from him with a subtly attractive smile. Left to himself, Martin sleepily examined his surroundings. The room, oak-paneled throughout, was long, low, and gloomy. An enormous, old-fashioned, empty fireplace occupied the center of one of the walls. On the one side of it was an oak satay, on the other an equally ponderous black oak chest. Heavy oaken beams traversed the ceiling, and the somber, funereal character of the room was fully increased by a colossal and antique four-poster, which, placed in the exact middle of the chamber, faced a gigantic mirror attached, grotesquely carved, and excessively lofty sable supports. Viewed in the feeble, fluctuating candlelight, the latter seemed endowed with some peculiar and emphatically weird life. Their glistening, polished surfaces threw a dozen and one fantastic but oddly human shadows on the boards, as, at the same time, they appeared in bewildering alternation to increase and diminish in stature. Tristram hastily undressed and stretching himself between the blankets prepared to go to sleep, like yourself, and for a similar reason he never sleeps on his left side. Accordingly, he occupied the right portion only of the enormous bed. Why he did not fall asleep at once he could not explain. He fancied that it might be because he was overtired. This undoubtedly had something to do with it, as also had the remarkable noises, footfalls, creeks, and sighs that came from every corner of the apartment the moment the light was out. He listened to these inexplicable sounds with increasing alarm until the sonorous clock from somewhere outside boomed one. When quite unaccountably he fell asleep, awakening on the stroke of two from a dreadful nightmare. To his intense astonishment and consternation he was no longer alone in the bed. Someone or something was lying by his side on the left hand side of the bed. At first his thoughts reverted to the young lady with the scarlet stockings. Then a sensation of icy coldness whilst speedily reassuring him with regard to her struck him with the utmost terror. Who or what could it be? For some seconds he lay in breathless silence, too frightened even to stir and panic-stricken lest the violent beating of his heart should arouse the mysterious visitor. But at length, impelled by an irresistible impulse, he sat up in bed and opened his eyes. The room was aglow with a phosphorescent light, and in the depths of the glittering mirror he saw a startling reproduction of the phantasmagoric fore poster. He instinctively felt that there were some extraordinary change in the supports and that the suspicions he had at first entertained as to their semi-human properties had become verified. But mercifully for his sanity he found it impossible to look. His attention was immediately riveted on the object by his side which he recognized with a thrill of surprise was a bronzed and bearded man of rather more than middle age who appeared to be buried in the most profound sleep. The picture was so vividly portrayed in the glass that Tristram could see the gentle heaving of the bedclothes each time the sleeper breathed. Fascinated beyond measure at such an unlooked-for spectacle and desirous of a closer inspection, Tristram, with a supreme effort, managed to tear away his eyes from the mirror and to glance at the bed where, to his unmitigated astonishment, he saw no one. Quite unable to know what to make of the phenomenon, he again directed his gaze to the glass. And there, right enough, lay the sleeper. A cold shutter now ran through Tristram. He could no longer disguise from himself what he had in reality thought all along that the room was haunted. The usual symptoms accompanying occult manifestations rapidly made themselves known. Tristram was constrained to stare at the luminous glitter before him in helpless expectation. To save his soul, he could neither have stirred nor uttered the faintest ejaculation. He saw in the mirror the door of the bedroom slowly open and a hideous, apish face peeped stealthily in, not at him, but at the sleeper. Next he watched a figure, brown and hairy and lurid, the figure of some huge monkey, come crawling into the room on all fours and followed each of its telltale movements as, sidling up to its sleeping victim, it suddenly hurled itself at him, choking him to death with its long fingers. This was the climax. Tristram saw no more. The phosphorescent light died out, the mirror darkened, and on sinking back on his pillow he realized with the wildest delight he was once again alone his bedfellow had gone. Tristram was so unnerved by all that had happened that he made up his mind to leave the house at daybreak, a decision which, however, was altered on the appearance of the sun and the charming little girl in the red stockings. After breakfasting, Tristram strolled around the town, chancing to meet an old school fellow named Harriet in the Rue des Mermedots. Harriet had only recently come to Bruges. He was dissatisfied with his lodgings and readily fell in with Tristram's suggestion that they should dig together. The maid with the yellow hair was more pleasing than ever. Harriet fell desperately in love with her and it was close on midnight before he could be persuaded to bid her good night and accompany Tristram to the bedchamber. I wonder why she told me not to sleep on the left side of the bed, he said to Martin as they began to undress. Tristram glanced guiltily at the mirror. For reasons of his own he hadn't as much hinted to Harriet what he had seen there the previous night, and he was not at all sure now that it might not have been a nightmare or an hallucination. Anyhow, he would like to put it to the test before mentioning it to anyone, and Harriet, whom he knew to be a skeptic with regard to ghosts, was so strong and hail a man physically that, happen what might, he had no apprehensions whatever concerning him. Regretting that he was obliged to disobey the wishes of a lady, Harriet declared his preference for the left side of the bed, adding that if the maiden was so highly enamored of him, she must put herself to the inconvenience of a few extra yards. Infatuation like hers, he maintained, should surely overcome all obstacles. Nothing loth Tristram gave in to him, and before many minutes had elapsed both men had fallen into a deep sleep. On the stroke of two Tristram awoke, perspiring horribly. The room was once again a glow with a phosphorescent light, and he felt the presence next to him of something cold and clammy. Unable to look elsewhere, he was again compelled to gaze in the mirror, where he saw, to his consternation and horror, no Harriet, but in his place the man with the bronzed face and bushy beard. He had hardly recovered from the shock, occasioned by this discovery, when the door surreptitiously opened and the figure of the ape glided noiselessly in. Again he was temporarily paralyzed, his limbs losing all their power of action, and his tongue cleaving to the roof of his mouth. The movements of the phantasm were entirely repetitionary of the previous night. Approaching the bed on all fours, it leaped on its victim, the tragedy being accompanied this time by the most realistic chokings and gurgles to all of which Tristram was obliged to listen in an agony of doubt and terror. The drama ended. Tristram was overcome by a sudden fit of drowsiness, and sinking back onto his pillow, slept till broad daylight. Anxious to question Harriet as to whether he too had been a witness of the ghostly transaction, he touched him lightly on the shoulder. There was no reply. He touched him again, and still no answer. He touched him yet a third time, and as there was still no response, he leaned over his shoulder and peered into his face. Harriet was dead. This is the fourth death in that bed within the last twelve months that I can swear to. The English doctor remarked to Tristram as they walked down the street together, and always from the same calls, failure of the heart due to a sudden shock. If you take my advice, you'll clear out of the place at once. Tristram thought so too, but before he went he had a talk with the girl in the red stockings. I can't tell you all I know, she said to him as he kissed her. But I wouldn't sleep a night in that room for a fortune, though I believe it's quite safe if you keep on the right side of the bed. I wish your friend had done so. He was so handsome. And Tristram, not a little hurt, let go her hand and made arrangements for the funeral. And is that all? I asked, as Tristram's material body paused. It may be, was the reply, but that is why I've come to you. Don't be gull'd by Tristram into any investigations in that house. Enthusiasm for his research work makes him unconsciously callous, and if he once got you there, he might, even against your better judgment, persuade you to sleep on the left side. Good night. I shook hands with him and he departed. The following evening I heard it all again from Tristram himself, the real Tristram. Needless to say, his concluding remarks differed essentially. With unbounded cordiality, he urged me to accompany him back again to the broogs, and I declined. He wrote to me afterwards to say that he had discovered the history of the house. A man, a music hall artist, answering to the description of the figure in the bed, had once lived there with a performing ape, an orangutan, and happening to annoy the animal one day, the latter had killed him. The brute was eventually shot. This experience of mine, Tristram added, is of greatest value, for it has thoroughly convinced me of one thing, at least, and that, that apes have spirits. And if that be so, so must all other kinds of animals. Of course they must. Phantasms of Cat and Baboon A sister of a well-known author tells me there used to be a house called the Swallows, standing in two acres of land, close to a village near Basingstoke. In 1840, a Mr. Bishop of Tring bought the house, which had long stood empty, and went to live there in 1841. After being there a fortnight, two servants gave notice to leave, stating that the place was haunted by a large cat and a big baboon, which they constantly saw stealing down the staircases and passages. They also testified to hearing sounds as if somebody being strangled, proceeding from an empty attic near where they slept, and of the screams and groans of a number of people being horribly tortured in the cellars just underneath the dairy. On going to see what was the cause of the disturbances, nothing was ever visible. By and by, other members of the household began to be harassed by similar manifestations. The news spread through the village, and crowds of people came to the house with lights and sticks to see if they could witness anything. One night, at about 12 o'clock, when several of the watchers were stationed on guard in the empty courtyard, they saw all the forms of the huge cat and a baboon rise from the closed grading of the large cellar under the old dairy, rush past them, and disappear in a dark angle of the walls. The same figures were repeatedly seen afterwards by many other persons. Early in December of 1841, Mr. Bishop, hearing fearful screams, accompanied by deep and hoarse jabberings, apparently coming from the top of the house, rushed upstairs, whereupon all was instantly silent, and he could discover nothing. After that, Mr. Bishop set to work to get rid of the house, and was fortunate enough to find a purchaser, a retired colonel who was soon, however, scared out of it. This was in 1842. It was soon after pull-down. The ground was used for the erection of the cottages, but the hauntings being transferred to them, they were speedily vacated, and no one ever daring to inhabit them. They were eventually demolished, the site on which they stood, being converted into allotments. There were many theories as to the history of the swallows, one being that a highwayman, known as Steeplechase Jock, the son of a Scottish chieftain, had once plied his trade there, and murdered many people, whose bodies were supposed to be buried somewhere on or near the premises. He was said to have had a terrible, though decidedly unorthodox ending, falling into a vat of boiling tar, a raving madman. But what were the phantasms of the ape and the cat? Were they the earthbound spirits of the highwayman and his horse, or simply the spirits of two animals? Though either theory is possible, I am inclined to favour the former. Psychic bears. Edmund Lenthal Swift, appointed in 1814, Keeper of the Crown Jewels in the Tower of London, refers in an article in Notes and Queries 1860 to various unaccountable phenomena happening in the tower during his residence there. He says that one night in the jewel office, one of the centuries was alarmed by a figure like a huge bear issuing from underneath the jewel room door. He thrust at it with his bayonet, which, going right through it, stuck in the doorway, whereupon he dropped it in a fit and was carried senseless to the guard room. When on the morrow Mr. Swift saw the soldier in the guard room, his fellow sensinal was also there, and the latter testified to having seen his comrade before the alarm quiet and active and in full possession of his faculties. He was now, so Mr. Swift added, changed almost beyond recognition and died the following day. Mr. George Offer, in referring to this incident, alludes to queer noises having been heard at the time the figure appeared, presuming that the sensinal was not the victim of a hallucination, the question arises as to the kind of spirit that he saw. The bear, judging by cases that have been told to me, is by no means an uncommon occult phenomenon. The difficulty is how to classify it, since, upon no question, appertaining to the psychic, can one dogmatize. To quote from a clever poem that appeared in a January number of the occult review, to pretend one knows anything definite about the immaterial world is all swank. At the most, we can only speculate. Nothing, nothing whatsoever beyond the bear fact that there are phenomena unaccountable by physical laws, has yet been discovered. All the time and energy and space that have been devoted by scientists to the investigation of spiritualism and to making tests in automatic writing are, in my opinion, hopelessly futile. No one who has ever really experienced spontaneous, ghostly manifestations could for one moment believe in the genuineness of the phenomena produced at seances. They have never deceived me, and I am of the opinion spirits cannot be convoked to order, either through a so-called medium falling into a so-called trance, through table turning, automatic writing, or anything else. If a spirit comes, it will come either voluntarily or in obedience to some unknown power, and certainly neither to satisfy the curiosity of a crowd of sensation-loving men and women, nor to be analyzed by some cold, calculating, presumptuous professor of physics whose proper sphere is the laboratory. But to proceed, the phenomenon of the big bear, provided again it was really objective, may have been the phantasm of some prehistoric creature whose bones lie interred beneath the tower, for we know the valley of the Thames was infested with giant reptiles and quadrupeds of all kinds, or it may have been a vice elemental, or the phantasm of a human being who lived a purely animal life and whose spirit would naturally take the form most closely resembling it. Judging by the number of experiences related to me, hauntings by phantom hairs and rabbits would appear to be far from uncommon. There is this difference, however, between the hauntings by the two species of an animal. Phantom hairs usually pretend death or some grave catastrophe, either to the witness himself or to someone immediately associated with him, whereas phantom rabbits are seldom prophetic and may generally be looked upon as merely the earthbound spirits of some poor rabbits that have met with untimely ends. Hauntings by a White Rabbit Mr. W. T. Steed, in his real ghost stories, gives an account of the hauntings by a phantom rabbit and a house in Blank Road. He does not, however, mention any locality. After describing several of the phenomena which disturb various occupants of the place, he goes on to say, in the language of Mrs. A., who narrates the incidents, A dog which lay on the rug also heard the sounds, for he pricked up his ears and barked. Without a moment's delay she flew to the door, calling the dog to follow her, intending as she did so to open the hall door and call for assistance. But the dog, though an excellent house dog, crouched at her feet and whined, but would not follow her up the stairs, so she carried him up in her arms and reaching the door called for assistance. When, however, the dining room doors were open, the rooms were in perfect, quiet, and destitute of any signs of life. The behavior of the dog here accords exactly with the behavior of dogs I have had in haunted houses and substantiates my theory that dogs are excellent psychic barometers. After the family had been in the house a few weeks, a white rabbit made its appearance. This uncanny animal would suddenly appear in a room in which members of the family were seated, and after gliding round and slipping under chairs and tables would disappear through a brick wall as easily as through an open door. This is the invariable trick of ghosts. They seldom, however, open doors. Mrs. A adds, Some years now have elapsed since the incident I have now related took place, and again in response to orders given by the enterprising landlord of the property, long-closed doors and windows have been thrown open, and painters and paper hangers have brought in their skill to bear upon gruesome rooms and halls. The house is once more inhabited, this time by a widow lady and some grown-up sons. These tenants come from a distance and are entirely strangers both to the neighborhood and the former history of the house, but to use her own words the mistress cannot understand what ails the house. Her sons insist on sleeping together in one room and the quiet of the house is constantly being broken by the erratic appearances of a large white rabbit which inmates are frequently engaged chasing, but are never able to find. Mr. Steed offers no explanation. I can see no other conclusion, however, than that this ghost was the actual phantasm of some rabbit that had been done to death in the house, probably by the boy whose apparition was among the other manifestation seen there. John Wesley's Ghost During the extraordinary manifestations which occurred in the house of John Wesley at Epworth, the phantom forms of two animals appeared, one being a large white rabbit, and the other an animal like a badger which used to appear in the bedrooms and run about, then disappear, whilst the various bankings and wrappings were at their loudest. This is the only case I have ever come across of the ghost of a badger. I think it must be unique. Mr. Spann adds, Many strange and inexplicable things occurred in that house which were not due to any natural calls or reason. I remember that loud wrappings used to sound around my room at night, even when I had a light burning. I was often awakened by wrappings on the floor of my bedroom which would then sound on the walls and furniture and were heard by others occupying rooms some distance off. This again is most interesting as ghosts seldom visit lighted rooms. Mr. Spann continues, It was in the afternoon and bright daylight when my brother saw this mysterious animal. He was in the drawing room alone, and as he was standing at one side of the room looking at pictures on the walls he heard a noise behind him and found, on looking round, that a sofa which generally lay against one of the walls had been lifted by some unknown power into the middle of the room. At the same time he saw an animal like a rabbit run from under the sofa across the room and disappear into the wall. He searched everywhere for the animal which could not have escaped from the room as the doors and window were closed, but was unable to find any sign of one or any hole whereby one might have passed out. The psychic faculty in hairs and rabbits. Hairs and rabbits are very susceptible to the super physical, the presence of which they sent in the same manner as do horses and dogs. I have known them to events the greatest symptoms of terror when brought into a haunted house. End of Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Of Animal Ghosts This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org, this reading by Allison Hester of Athens, Georgia. Animal Ghosts by Elliot O'Donnell Chapter 6 Inhabitants of the Jungle Elephants, Lions, Tigers, etc. Elephants undoubtedly possess the faculty of senting spirits in a very marked degree. It is most difficult to get an elephant to pass a spot where any phantasm is known to appear. The big beast at once comes to a halt, trembles, trumpets, and, turning round, can only be urged forward by the gentlest coaxing. Jungles are full of the ghosts of slain men and animals and afford more variety in hauntings than any other localities. The spirits of such cruel creatures as lions, tigers, leopards are very much earthbound and may be seen or heard night after night, haunting the sights of their former depredations. The following case of a tiger ghost was narrated to me years ago by a gentleman whom I will style, Mr. De Silva, PWD. I published his account in a popular weekly journal as follows. The White Tiger Tap, tap, tap. Someone was coming behind me. I halted, and in the brilliant moonlight saw a figure hobbling along, first one thin leg, then the other, always with the same measured stride, accompanied with the same tapping of the stick. I had no wish for his company, though the road was lonely and I feared the presence of tigers, so I hurried on, and the faster I went, the nearer he seemed to come. Tap, tap, tap. The man was blind and a leper, and so repulsively ugly that the niggers on the settlement regarded him with superstitious awe. I had a horror of tigers, but lepers even greater, and I loved my wife with no ordinary love, so I hurried on, and he followed quickly after me. The night was brilliant, even more so, I thought, than was ordinary, and the very brilliancy made me fear for my shadow, the shadow of the trees, shadows for which I had no name, flickered across the road, were lost to sight to return again, and the jungle was getting nearer. The open country on either side ceased. One by one, tall blades of jungle grass shook their heads in the gentle breeze, and the silence of the darkness beyond began to make itself felt. A night bird whizzed past me, croaking out a dismal incantation from its black throat, something at which I did not care to look, clattered from under a stone I loosened with my foot, and sped into the shade, and I hastened on. Tap, tap, tap. Faster and faster and faster came the blind man. I could smell the oil on his body, hear his breathing. Whoever you are, Sahib, stop. There was fear in his voice as he wind out these words, a fear which increased my own, but I pretended not to hear and pressed on faster. The darkness grew high over my head, at either side of the road waved the grass, rustling to and fro, and singing to sleep the insects nestled on its green stalks with its old-time song of the jungle. The grass ahead of me slowly parted, and my heart beat quicker, the tapping behind me ceased. It was only some small animal. What was it? A small hyena? No. A jackal, a lame jackal, and it looked at me from out of eyes that for some reason or other made me shiver. I did not know what there was about the jackal that was different from what I had seen in any other jackal, but there was something, and as I looked at it in awe, it vanished, melted into thin air. The moment after a second jackal appeared, just where the other one had been standing, but there was nothing remarkable about this one, and on my bending down, pretending to look for a stone to throw at it, it slunk back silently and stealthily whence it had come, and I hurried on faster than ever, knowing a tiger was near at hand. Tap, tap, tap. I blessed the presence of the blind man. For God's sake, Sahib, stop. For the love of Allah, Sahib, stop. You know how they talk, O Donald. The jackals, did you not see them? I knew them by their smell, the smell of the living and of the dead. Walk with me, Sahib, for Allah's sake. Presently, O Donald, I heard a heavier rustling in the grass than the wind makes, a rustling that kept pace with me, and went along by my side, never halting, but faster and faster and faster. A short distance ahead of me was a patch of bright light where the crossroads met, a few yards more, and the jungle grass would end. I thought of this, O Donald. The beggar might not know the road so well as I. He had no wife, no child, he was a leper, only a leper, and my teeth chattered. Here the colonel paused and wiped his forehead. I slackened my speed, the rustling by my side slowing down, and the tapping grew faster. I was close to the whitened road. Sahib, the blessing of Allah, be on you for stopping. Sahib, let me walk by your side. To the end of my days, O Donald, I shall never forgive myself, and yet I want you to understand it was for my wife and child I slunk into the shade. Two steps more, and the tapping would pass me. The stick struck the ground within one inch of my foot. My heart almost ceased to beat. I gazed in fascination at the spot in the jungle opposite. The heavy rustling had stopped. Only the gentle sighing of the wind went on. The two steps were taken. The blind man paused on the crossroads. He was ghastly in the moonlight. I shuddered. His eyes peered inquiringly round on all sides. He was looking for me. He had lost his way. He feared the tiger. Suddenly something huge shot like an arrow from the darkness opposite me. I bowed my head, O Donald, and motored a prayer, for I thought my end had come. A terrible scream rang out in the clear night air. I was saved. Hala! Curse you and yours, Sahib! I opened my eyes. An enormous tiger was bending over the leper, searching for the most convenient spot in his body to afford a tight grip. The man's sightless eyes returned towards the moon. His teeth shone white and even, with the striped horror purring in his face. He thought of vengeance on me. I dared not move. I could not pass, O Donald. I had no gun. The big brute found a nice place to catch hold. It opened its mouth so that I could see its glistening teeth. It looked down at its paws where the cruel claws glittered and they seemed to afford it keen satisfaction. It was a Tigris and vein. Then it lowered its head and the leper shrieked. I watched it pick him up as if it were one of his cubs. Saw the blood trickle down his soft white throat into the dusty road and then it trotted gracefully away and was lost in the darkness of the jungle. There was a depth-like silence after this. I waited a few minutes and then I got up. I had only a short distance to go and I no longer feared the presence of man-eaters. There was not likely to be another. Hours afterwards, O Donald, when I lay in my hammock as safe as a fortress, I fancied. I heard the dead man's cry. Fancied I heard his voice. No one was more devoted to a wife than I was to mine. Hours had been purely a love match and it was against my wish that she had accompanied me to such an out-of-the-way place as Sikoni. I told her about my adventure suppressing the leper's curse and I was glad I did so as she was greatly distressed. Thank goodness you escaped, Charlie, she said. I am so sorry for the poor leper. I suppose you couldn't have helped him. I might have fetched my rifle, I replied, and tried to rescue him, of course, but I fear it wouldn't have been of much avail, as he would have been badly mauled by then. My wife sighed. Oh, well, she said. Love is selfish. It makes one forget others. Still, I wouldn't have it otherwise. I wish this railway job here was over. I murmured, sitting with my elbows on my knees and looking over the flat ground, sun-baked and barren, away towards the dark jungles and the still darker mountains towering above them. And as I gazed, a shadow seemed to blur my vision and a voice to whisper in my ears, beware of my curse. I took Kushe, one of the native servants, into confidence. Now Kushe, I said, you know all the superstitions of the country, the evil eye, and the rest of them. Tell me, what can the dying curse of a leper do? Kushe turned pale under his skin. Natavnara, he stuttered, swinging the knife with which he had been cutting maize in his hand. Natavnara, the leper of Putteba. Sahib, if you were cursed by him, beware. He was learned in the black arts. He could heal ulcers by repeating a prayer he could bring on fever. At this, O Donald, I turned cold. I had lived long in India. I had seen their so-called juggling, had experienced also strange cases of telepathy, and knew quite sufficient of their intimacy with the supernatural elements to be afraid. You must keep the young Sahib safe, Kushe said, and the white lady. I wish it hadn't been Natavnara. I took his advice. My boy, Eric, was more closely supervised than ever. And as to my wife, I begged and treated her not to move from the house until the tiger was dead, and I searched for it everywhere. The dry season passed, the wet came, and my work still kept me in Sikoni. At times there came to us rumors of the man-eater, of another victim, but it never visited our bungalow where the bright rifle leaned against the wall waiting for it. I certainly did meet with slight misfortunes, which the more timid might have put down to the working of the curse. My little finger was squashed in the laying down of a rail, and Eric had several bouts of sickness. It was nearly a year after the leper's death that alarming rumors of a man-eater having been at work again were spread about us. Several niggers were carried off or badly bitten, and the wounded showed symptoms of the loathsome disease so well known and feared by us all. Leprosy. I knew from that it must be the same tiger. The tiger is near, someone would cry out, and a stampede among the native workmen would ensue. Why the white tiger? I asked Kushai. B'khal Sahib, he replied, the leprosy has made it so. Tigers, like men and all other animals, go white even to their hair. I have not told them the story, Sahib. They only know it must have caught the leprosy. To them, Nahara is still living. Then, O'Donnell, when I thought of what was at stake and of all the hideous possibilities the presence of this brute created, I took my rifle and went out to search for it. In the evenings when the dark clouds from the mountains descended and the wind hissed through the jungle grass, I plotted along with no other companion than my Winchester repeater, searching, always searching, for the damned tiger. I found it, O'Donnell, came upon it just as it was in the midst of a meal, dining off a native, and I shot it twice before it recovered from its astonishment at seeing me. The second shot took effect, I can swear to that, for I took particular note of the red splash of blood on its forehead, where the bullet entered, and I went right up to it to make sure, as God is above us, no animal was more dead. The curse won't come now, Kushai. I said, laughing, I've killed the white tiger. Killed the white tiger, Sahib. Hala, bless you for that. Kushai replied, but don't laugh too soon. Nahra was a clever man, wonderfully clever. He did not speak empty words. And as his eyes wandered to the dark hills again, I fancied a shadow darted along the sky, and the curse came back to my ears. I was superintending the line one afternoon. The backs of the niggers were vending double under the burden of the great iron rods when I heard a terrible cry. The white tiger, the white tiger. Rods fell with a crash. Spades followed suit. A chorus of shrieks filled the air, and legs scampered off in all directions. I was fifty yards from my rifle, and a huge creature was slowly approaching between it and me. I could hardly believe my eyes. The white tiger, the tiger I knew I had killed. Here it was, here before me, the same in every detail, and yet in some strange, indefinable manner, not the same. On it came a huge patch of luminous, white, noiselessly, stealthily, the mark of the bullet plainly visible on its big flat forehead. Step by step, it approached me. Its paws no longer with the coloring of health, but dull and worn. And as it came, the cold shadow of desolation seemed to fall around it. Nothing stirred. There was no noise whatever, not even the sound of its feet crushing the loosened soil. On, on, on, nearer, nearer, and nearer. Shunned by all, avoided by its fellow creatures of the jungle, a blight to all and everything, it drew in a line with me. Not once did its eyes meet mine, O'Donnell. Not once did it glare at the natives who were hiding on the banks of the cutting. But it stole silently on its way with something in its movements that left no doubt, but that it was engaged in no casual venture. I remembered, O'Donnell, that my wife had promised to come with Eric to meet me along the cutting, as she was sure no tiger would be there. I ran as fast as I could, and yet somehow my feet seemed weighted down. I cursed my folly for not forbidding my wife to come. It was uphill till I got to the bend, and it might have been a mountain. It seemed so steep. I knew if the thing I had seen met them a little farther on they would be cornered, as the cutting narrowed very much, leaving not more than twenty yards, and that was a generous estimate. At last, after what seemed an eternity, I reached the summit of the slope. The tiger was a mere speck along the line. I rushed after it as fast as I could go, stumbling, half falling, pulling myself together and tearing on. And the faster I went, the quicker moved the great white figure. A feeling of despair seized me. All my fondness for my wife became intensified tenfold, and was revealed to me then in its true nature. She was the one great tie that made life dear to me. Even my love for Eric paled away before the blinding affection I bore her. I tore madly on, shouting at the same time, anything, to make the white tiger aware of my presence, to keep it from seeing her. Another bend in the road hit it from view. The same hideous fears gripped me hard and fast, as I strained every muscle in the mad pursuit. At last, I ran around the curve, and saw before me the tablo I had dreaded. The tiger was crouching, ready to spring on the group of three, Eva, Eric, and the Aya. They were paralyzed with fear, and stood on the rails, staring at it, unable to move or utter a sound. I well understood their feelings, and knew they were laboring in their minds as to whether the thing that confronted them was a creature of flesh and blood, or what it was. They could not take their eyes off it, and, as a consequence, did not see me. The white tiger now went through a series of actions, so lifelike, that I could not but believe it was real, and that I had been deceived into thinking I had killed it. Its haunches quivered, it got ready to spring, and my rifle flew to my shoulder. I saw it mark Eric, and read the increased agony in my wife's eyes. The critical moment came, another second, and the thing, be it material or supernatural, would jump. I must fire at all costs. If mortal, I must kill it. If ghostly, the noise of my rifle might dematerialize it. And, as God is my judge, O'Donnell, at that moment I had not the least idea which of it was, tiger or phantom. It sprang, my brain reeled, my fingers grew numb, and as my wife suddenly bounded forward, the shadowy form of Nahra seemed to rise from the ground and mock me. With a supreme effort, I jerked my finger back and fired, bang, the sound of the explosion acted like a safety valve, to the pent-up feelings of all, and there was a chorus of shrieks. I rushed forward, the aya lay on the ground, face downward and motionless. My wife had hold of Eric, who was shaking all over. Of the tiger, there were no signs, it had completely vanished. Thank God, I exclaimed, kissing my wife feverishly. Thank God, it was only a ghost, but it was very alarming, wasn't it? Alarming, my wife gasped. It was awful, I quite thought it was real. So did Eric, so did then her eyes fail on the aya, and she gave a great start. Charlie, she cried, for mercy's sake, look at her. I dare not. Is she all right? I turned the aya over. She was dead. Fright had killed her. I then told my wife of the curse of Nahra, and of the phantom I thought I had seen of him, when the white tiger was springing. When I had finished, my wife hid her face in my shoulder. Charlie, she said, I did something awful. I saw what I then took to be the real white tiger single-out Eric, and in my anxiety to save him from the brute, I pushed the aya in front of him, and the thing sprang on her instead. It was nothing short of murder. And yet, well, there were extenuating circumstances, weren't there? Of course there were, I said, for I verily believed O'Donnell fear had for the time being turned her brain. On our way home, she suddenly called my attention to Eric. Charlie, she cried, what's that mark on his cheek? He's hurt. I looked, and my heart turned sick with me. On the boy's cheek was a faint red scratch, just as might have been caused by a slight, very slight contact with some animal's claw. Sahib, Koushaw whispered to me, when he saw it, and heard of our adventure. Sahib, beware, not her I was a clever man. He must have used the spirit of the white tiger as his tool, let the medicine man examine the scar. I did so. I took Eric to a Dr. Nicholson, who lived close by. He looked at the wound curiously for a few moments, and then said to me, he was renowned for his plain speaking. Mr. De Silva, there's no use in beating around the bush and prolonging the agony unnecessarily for you and your wife. The boy's got leprosy, God alone knows how, and at the most he may live six weeks. The shock, of course, was terrible. Eric had to be isolated from everyone, even those who loved him best, and died within a month. Sahib, I knew, Koushaw said to me the day of the funeral, I knew some disaster would befall you. Nahra was a wonderful man, and his curse had to be fulfilled. You may rest assured, however, nothing further will befall you, for I saw Nahra in a vision this morning, and he told me both his and his white tiger spirit were now on friendly terms, and he would trouble you no more. My wife and I left the place at once, and for a long time I lived in a hell of suspense, lest she should develop the infernal disease. By a merciful providence, however, she did no such thing, but on the contrary, picked up in health the most marvelous fashion. Indeed, she only told me yesterday, she felt better than she had done for years. I've told you the story, O'Donnell, and it is true in every detail, because it goes a long way to substantiate your theory that animals, as well as human beings, have a future life. I'm absolutely sure they have, I replied. Jungle Animals and Psychic Faculties It is, of course, impossible to say whether animals of the jungle possess psychic faculties without putting them to the test, and this, for obvious reasons, is extremely difficult. But since I have found that such properties are possessed in varying degree by all animals I have tested, it seems only too probable that bears and tigers and all beasts of prey are similarly endowed. It would be interesting to experiment with a beast of prey in a haunted locality, to observe to what extent it would be aware of the advent of the unknown, and to note its behavior in the actual presence of the phenomena. End of Chapter 6 Part 1 of Chapter 7 of Animal Ghosts This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. This reading by Allison Hester of Athens, Georgia. Animal Ghosts by Elliot O'Donnell. Chapter 7 Birds and the Unknown As Edgar Allen Poe has suggested in his immortal poem of The Raven, there is a strong link between certain species of birds and the unknown. We all know that vultures, kites, and crows sent dead bodies from a great way off, but we don't all know that these and other kinds of birds possess, in addition to psychic property of senting the advent, not only of the Phantom of Death, but of many, if not indeed all other spirits. Within my knowledge there have been cases when, before a death in the house, ravens, jackdalls, canaries, magpies, and even parrots have shown unmistakable signs of uneasiness and distress. The raven has croaked in a high-pitched abnormal key. The jackdall and the canary have become silent and dejected, and from time to time shivering. The magpie even has feigned death. The parrot has shrieked incessantly. Owls, too, are sure predictors of death, and may be heard hooting in the most doleful manner outside the house of anyone doomed to die shortly. In an article entitled Psychic Records, the editor of The Occult Review, in the August 1905, supplies the following anecdotes of ghosts of birds furnished him by his correspondence. In the autumn of 1877, my husband was lying seriously ill with rheumatic fever, and I had sat up several nights. At last, the doctors insisted on my going to bed, and very unwillingly I retired to a spare room. While undressing, I was surprised to see a very large white bird come from the fireplace, make a hovering circle round me, and finally go to the top of a large double chest of drawers. I was too tired to trouble about it, and I thought I would let it remain until morning. The next morning I said to the housemaid, There was a large bird in the spare room last night which flew to the top of the drawers, see that it is put out. The nurse who was present said, Oh dear ma'am, I am afraid that is an omen, and it means the master won't live. And she was confirmed in her opinion by the maid, saying she had searched, and there was no trace of any bird. I was quite angry, as my husband was decidedly better, had slept through the night, and we thought that the crisis had passed. I went to his bedside, and found him quietly sleeping. But he never woke, and in about an hour passed quietly away. I thought no more of the bird, fancying I must have been mistaken from being overtired. Some months after my husband's death, my youngest little one was born. He lived for twelve months, and then had an attack of bronchitis. He slept in a cot in my room, and I was undressing one night, when the same large white bird came from his cot, floated round me, and disappeared into the fireplace. At the time I did not for a moment think of it as anything but a strange coincidence, and in no way connected it with baby's illness. The next morning I was sitting by the drawing room fire with baby on my lap. The doctor came in, looked at him, sounded his chest, and pronounced him much better. As he was a friend of the family, he sat down on the other side of the fireplace, and was chatting in an ordinary way, when suddenly he jumped up with an exclamation, why what does this mean? And took the child from my arms, quite dead. For two years we saw nothing more of the white bird, and we had moved to another place. One day I was in my room, and my two little girls, aged six and eight, were standing at the window watching a kitten in the garden, when suddenly the youngest cried out, oh mama, look at that great white bird putting her hands as if to catch it, exactly in the way it flies round one. I saw nothing, and the elder child said, don't be silly Jesse, there is no bird. But there is, said the child, don't you see, there look, there it is. I looked at my watch, it was twenty minutes past three. Two days after, we received the news that a niece of mine had died at twenty minutes past three. The children had never known anything of the former appearances, as we had never talked about it before them. We have seen nothing since of the bird, but have for some years had no death in the family. So runs the article in the Occult Review, and I can corroborate it with similar experiences that have happened to my friends and me. Some years ago, for instance, a great friend of my wife's died, and on the day of the funeral, a large bird tried to fly in at the window of the room where the corpse lay, while shortly afterwards, an exactly similar bird, visited the window of my wife's and my room in a house, several hundreds of miles away. If it was only a coincidence, it was a very extraordinary one. Then again, this spring, just before the death of one of my wife's relatives, a large bird flew violently against the window pane behind which my wife was sitting, an incident that had never happened to her in that house before. Undoubtedly, spirits in the guise of birds, most probably they are the phantasms of birds that have actually once lived on the material plane, are the messengers of death. A Case of Bird Haunting in East Russia Some years ago, the neighborhood of Orskayia in East Russia was roused by an affair of a very remarkable nature. The body of a handsome young peasant woman, called Marth Poppinkoff, was found in a lonely part of the road between Orsakia and Orenburg, with the skin of her face and body shockingly torn and lacerated, but without there being any wounds deep enough to cause her death, which the doctor attributed to Singapore. The people of Orskayia, not satisfied with this verdict, declared Marth had been murdered and made such a loud clamor that the editor of the local paper at last voiced their sentiments in the East Russia Chronicle. It was then that M. Durant, a smart young French engineer temporarily residing in those parts, became interested in the case and decided to investigate it thoroughly. With this end in view, he wrote to his friend M. Herson, a keen student of the occult in Saratova to join him, and three days after the dispatch of his letter met the latter at the Orskayia railway station. M. Durant retell the case as they drove to his house. It is a remarkable affair in every way, he said. The woman was leading a perfectly respectable married life. She was hardworking and industrious, and beyond the fact that she was overindulgent to her children does not seem to have had any serious faults. As far as I can ascertain, she had no enemies. Nor secret lovers, M. Herson had asked. No, she was quite straight. And you feel sure she was murdered? I do. Public opinion so strongly favors that view. Did you see the marks on the woman? I did and could make nothing of them. After supper I will take you to see her in the morgue. What? She is still unburied? Yes, but there is nothing unusual about that. In these parts, bodies are often kept for ten days, sometimes even longer. M. Durant was as good as his word. After they had partaken of a somewhat hasty meal, they set out to the morgue, where they made a careful inspection of the poor woman's remains. M. Hersant examined the marks on the woman's body very closely with his magnifying glass. Ah! he suddenly exclaimed, bending down and almost touching the corpse with his nose. Ah! Have you made a discovery? M. Durant inquired. I prefer not to say it present. M. Hersant replied. I should like to see the spot where this body was found. Now. We will go there at once. M. Durant rejoined. The scene of the tragedy was the Orenburg Road at the foot of two little hills, and on either side were the sloping fields yellow with the knotting corn. That is the exact place where she lay. M. Durant said, indicating with his finger a dark patch on a little wooden bridge spanning a stream within a stone's throw of a tumbledown millhouse, all overgrown with ivy and lichen. M. Hersant looked round and sniffed the air with his nostrils. There is an air of loneliness about this spot, he remarked. That in itself suggests a crime. If this were an ordinary murder, one could well imagine the assassin was aided in his diabolical work by the configuration of the land which, shelving as it does, slips down into the narrow valley so as to preclude any possibility of escape on the part of his victim. The place seems especially designed by Providence as a death trap. Let us have a look at the interior of this building. The police have searched it thoroughly, M. Durant said. I've no doubt, M. Hersant replied dryly. No one knows better than I what the thoroughness of the police means. They entered the premises cautiously, since the roof was in a rickety condition, and any slight concussion might dislodge an avalanche of stones and plaster. While M. Durant stood glancing round him rather impatiently, M. Hersant made a careful scrutiny of the walls. Huh! he said at last. As you so rightly observed, Henry, this is a remarkable case. I have finished my investigation for tonight. Let us be going home. Tomorrow I should like to visit Marth's home. This conversation took place shortly before midnight. Some six hours later, all Orsgaia was ringing with the news that Marth Poponkov's three children had all been found dead in their beds. Their faces and bodies lacerated in exactly the same manner as their mothers. There seem to be no doubt now that Marth had been murdered, and the populace cried shame on the police, for the assassin was still at large. They agreed that the murderer could be of no other than Peter Poponkov and the editor of the local paper repeating these statements. Peter Poponkov was duly charged with the crimes and arrested. He was pronounced guilty by all, accepting M. Hersant, and of course M. Hersant thought him guilty too, only he liked to think differently from anyone else. I don't want to commit myself. Was all they could get out of him? I may have something to say later on. M. Durant laughed and shrugged his shoulders. It undoubtedly is Peter Poponkov. He observed. I had an idea that he was the culprit all along. But a day or two later, Peter Poponkov was found dead in prison, with the skin on his face and hands all torn to shreds. There, didn't we say so? cried the inconsequent mob. Peter Poponkov was innocent. One of the police themselves is the murderer. Come, you must acknowledge that we are on the right track now. It is one of the police, M. Durant said to his friend. But M. Hersant only shook his head. I acknowledge nothing of this sort, he said. Come with me to the millhouse tonight, and I will then tell you what I think. To this proposition M. Durant willingly agreed and accompanied by his friend and the village priest set off. On their arrival M. Hersant produced a big compass and on the earth floor of the millhouse drew a large circle in which he made with white chalk various signs and symbols. He then sat in the middle of it and bade his two companions stand in the doorway and watch. The night grew darker and darker and presently into the air stole a something that all three men at once realized was supernatural. M. Hersant coughed nervously. The priest crossed himself and M. Durant called out. This is getting ridiculous. These medieval proceedings are too absurd. Let us go home. The next moment from the far distance a church clock began to strike. It was midnight and an impressive silence fell on the trio. Then there came a noise like the fluttering of wings, a loud blood curdling scream, half human and half animal, and a huge black owl whirling down from the roof of the building perched in the circle directly in front of M. Hersant. Pray Father, pray quickly, M. Hersant whispered. Pray for the dead and sprinkle the circle with holy water. The priest, as well as his trembling limbs would allow, obeyed, whereupon the bird instantly vanished. For heaven's sake, M. Durant gasped, tell us what it all means. Only this, M. Hersant said solemnly, the phantasm we saw caused the death of the Poppinkoff family. It is the spirit of an owl that the children, encouraged by their parents, killed in a most cruel manner. As soon as I examined Mard's body I perceived the mutilations were due to a bird, and when I visited this mill on the eve of my arrival I knew that a bird had once lived here, that it had been captured with lime and murdered, and that it haunts the place. How could you know that? The priest exclaimed in astonishment. I am clairvoyant. I saw the bird's ghost as it appeared to us just now. Afterwards I inquired of the Poppinkoff's neighbors and the information I gathered fully confirmed my suspicions that the unfortunate bird had been put to death in a most barbarous manner. The deaths of the three children laid to rest any doubt I may have had with regard to the super-physical playing a part in the death of Mard. Then, when her better half had been served likewise, I was certain that all five pseudo-murders were wholly and solely acts of retribution and that they were perpetuated. I am inclined to think involuntarily by the spirit of the owl itself. Accordingly I decided to hold a séance here, here in its old haunt, and if possible to put an end to the earthbound condition and wanderings of the soul of the unhappy bird. Thanks to Father Mikldolf we have done so, and there will be no more so-called murders near Oreskayia. Hauntings by the Phantasms of Birds One of the most curious cases of hauntings by the Phantasms of Birds happens towards the end of the eighteenth century in a church not twenty miles from London. The sexons started the rumors declaring that he had heard strange noises, apparently proceeding from certain vaults containing the tombs of two old and distinguished families. The noises, which generally occurred on Friday nights, most often took the form of mockings, suggesting to some of the listeners the inaction of a murder and to others merely the flapping of wings. The case soon attracted considerable attention, people flocking to the church from all over the countryside, and it was not long before certain persons came forward and declared they had ascertained the cause of the disturbance. The church warden, sexton, and his wife and others all swore to seeing a huge crow pecking and clawing at the coffins in the vaults and flying about the chensel of the church and perching on the communion rails, when they had tried to seize it and immediately vanished. An old lady who came of a family of well-to-do yeoman and who lived near the church about that time said that the people in the town had for many years been convinced the church there was haunted by the phantom of a bird, which they believed to be the earthbound soul of a murderer who, owing to his wealth, was interred in the church yard instead of being buried at the crossroads with the customary wooden stake driven through the middle of his body. This belief of the yokels received some corroboration from a neighboring squire who said he had seen the phantasm and was quite positive it was the earthbound soul of a criminal whose family history was known to him and whose remains lay in the church yard. This is all the information that I have been able to gather on the subject, but it is enough to at least suggest the church was, at one time, haunted by the phantom of a bird. But whether the earthbound soul of a murderer taking that guise or the spirit of an actual dead bird it is impossible to say. End of part one of chapter seven. Part two of chapter seven and chapter eight of Animal Ghosts. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. This reading by Allison Hester of Athens, Georgia. Animal Ghosts by Elliot O'Donnell. Part two of chapter seven. The Ghost of an Evil Bird. Henry Spicer in his Strange Things Amongst Us tells the story of a Captain Morgan, an honorable and vivacious gentleman who, arriving in London in eighteen blank, puts up for the night in a large old-fashioned hotel. The room in which he slept was full of heavy antique furniture, reminiscent of the days of King George I, one of the worst periods in modern English history for crime. Despite, however, his grimly suggestive surroundings, Captain Morgan quickly got into bed and was soon asleep. He was abruptly awakened by the sound of flapping, and, on looking up, he saw a huge black bird with outstretched wings and fiery red eyes perched on the rail at the foot of the four-poster bed. The creature flew at him and endeavored to pet his eyes. Captain Morgan resisted, and, after a desperate struggle, succeeded in driving it to a sofa in the corner of a room where it settled down and regarded him with great fear in its eyes. Determined to destroy it, he flung himself on the top of it. When, to his surprise and terror, it immediately crumbled into nothingness. He left the house early the next morning, convinced that what he had seen was a ghost, but Mr. Spicer offers no explanation as to how one should classify the phenomenon. It may have been the earthbound spirit of the criminal, or a viciously inclined person who had once lived there, or it may have been the phantom of an actual bird. Either alternative is feasible. I have heard there is an old house near pool in Dorset, and another in Essex, which were formerly haunted by spectral birds, and, that as late as 1860, the phantasm of a bird, many times the size of a raven, was so frequently seen by the inmates of a house in Dean Street, Soho, that they eventually grew quite accustomed to it. But bird hauntings are not confined to houses, and are far more often to be met without of doors. Indeed, there are very few woods and moors and commons that are not subjected to them. I have constantly seen the spirits of all manner of birds in the parks in Dublin and London. Greenwich Park, in particular, is full of them. Addendum to Birds and the Unknown Though their unlovely aspect and solitary mode of life may in some measure account for the prejudice and suspicion with which the owl, crow, raven, and one or two other birds have always been regarded, there are undoubtedly other and more subtle reasons for their unpopularity. The ancients, without exception, credited these birds with psychic properties. Pliny says, these birds, crows, and rooks, all of them, keep much praddling and are full of chat, which most men take for an unlucky sign and presage of ill fortune. Ramsay, in his work, El Menthologia, in 1688, writes, If a crow fly over the house and croak thrice, how do they fear they, or someone else in the family, shall die? The Bitterne is also a bird of ill omen. Alluding to this bird, Bishop Hall once said, If a Bitterne flies over this man's head by night, he will make his will, whilst Sir Humphrey Davy wrote, I know a man of very high dignity who was exceedingly moved by omens, and who never went out shooting without a Bitterne's claw fastened to his buttonhole by a riband, which he thought ensured him good luck. Ravens and Swallows both, at times, prognosticate death. In Lloyd's Strategems of Jerusalem, 1602, he says, By Swallows lighting upon Pyrrhus's tents, and lighting upon the mast of Antonius's ship, sailing after Cleopatra to Egypt, the soothsayers did prognosticate that Pyrrhus should be slain at Argos in Greece, and Antonius in Egypt. He alludes to Swallows following Cyrus from Persia to Scythia, from which the wise men foretold his death. Ravens followed Alexander the Great from India to Babylon, which was regarded by all who saw them as a fatal sign. Tis not for naught that the Ravens sings now on my left hand, and, croaking, has once scraped the earth with its feet, wrote Plautus. Other references to the same bird are as follows. The Raven himself is horse that croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan under my battlements, Macbeth. It comes o'er my memory as doth the Raven or the infected house, boating to all, Othello. That tolls the sick man's passport in her hollow beak, and in the shadow of the silent night doth shake contagion from her sable wings. Jew of Malta. Is it not ominous in all countries where crows and ravens croak upon trees? Hooperties. The boating raven on her cottage sat, and with horse croakings warned us of our fate. The dirge. In Cornwall, writes Mr. Hunt in his work on popular beliefs, etc., of the west of England, quote, it is believed that the croaking of a raven over the house bodes evil to some of the family. The following incident, given to me by a really intelligent man, illustrates the feeling. One day our family were much annoyed by the continual croaking of a raven over the house. Some of us believed it to be a token. Others derided the idea, but one good lady, our next-door neighbor, said, just mark the day and see if something does not come of it. The day and the hour were carefully noted. Months passed away, and unbelievers were loud in their boastings and inquiries after the token. The fifth month arrived, and with it a black-edged letter from Australia announcing the death of one of the members of the family in that country. On comparing the dates of the death and the ravens croak, they were found to have occurred on the same day. In an old number of notes and queries, a correspondent relates that in Somerset Shear, the appearance of a single jackdaw is regarded as a sure prognostication of evil. He goes on to add that the men employed in the queries in Alvin George, Clifton, Bristol, had more than once noticed a jackdaw perched on the chain that spanned the river prior to some catastrophe among them. Dead magpies were once hung over the doorways of haunted houses to keep away ghosts. It being almost universally believed that all phantasms shared the same dread of this bird. Ghosts of magpies themselves are, however, far from uncommon. On Dartmoor and Exmoor, for example, I have seen several of them, generally in the immediate vicinity of bogs or deep holes. Witches were much attached to this bird and were said to often assume its shape after death. Magpies, says Mr. William Jones in his credulities, past and present, are mysterious everywhere. A lady living near Carlstad in Sweden grievously offended a farm woman who came into the court of her house asking for food. The woman was told to take that magpie hanging upon the wall and eat it. She took the bird and disappeared with an evil glance at the lady who had been so ill advised as to insult a thin, whose magical powers it is well known, bar exceed those of the gypsies. Mr. Jones in the same story says, presently the number increased and the lady, who at first had been amused, became troubled and tried to drive them away by various devices. All was to no purpose. She could not move without a large company of magpies, and they became at length so daring as to hop on her shoulder. Footnote. This reads like hallucination. However, as I have heard of similar cases in which there has been no doubt as to the objectivity of the phenomena, I see no reason why these magpies should not have been objective too. End of footnote. Then she took to her bed in a room with closed shutters, although even this was not an effectual protection, for the magpies kept tapping at the shutters day and night. Mr. Jones adds, the lady's death is not recorded, but it is fully expected that, die when she may, all the magpies of Wormland will be present at her funeral. There is a house in Great Russell Street, W.C., where the hauntings take the form of a magpie that taps at one of the windows every morning between two and three, and then appears inside the room, perched on what looks like a huge alpine stick suspended horizontally in the air about seven feet from the floor. The moment a sound is made, the apparition vanishes. It is thought to be the spirit of a magpie that was done to death in a very cruel manner in that room many years ago. There is a story current to the effect that a lady, when visiting the British Museum one day, happens to pass some sliding remark about one of the Egyptian mummy cases, not the notorious one, and that on quitting the building she felt a sharp peck on her neck. She put up her hand to the injured part and felt the distinct impression of a bird's claw on it. She could see nothing, however. That night, and for every succeeding night for six weeks, she was awakened at two o'clock by the phantom of an enormous magpie that fluttered over the bed and was clearly visible to herself and her sister. The phenomenon worried her so that she became ill and was eventually ordered abroad. She went to Cairo and enjoyed a brief respite. The hauntings, however, began again, and this time became so persistent that she at last lost her reason and had to be brought home and confined in a private asylum where she shortly afterwards died. Though I cannot vouch for the truth of this story, I do think it is somewhat risky to make fun of certain of the Egyptian relics in the museum. They may be haunted by something infinitely more alarming than the ghosts of magpies. There are many sayings respecting the magpie as a harbinger of ill luck. In Lankanshire, for example, there is this rhyme. One for anger, two for mirth, three for a wedding, four for a birth, five for rich, six for poor, seven for a witch, I dare tell you no more. From further north comes this couplet. Magpie, magpie, chatter and flee, turn up thy tail and good luck fall me. Rooks, again, are very psychic birds. They always leave their haunts near an old house shortly before a death takes place in it because their highly developed psychic faculty of scent enables them to detect the advent of the Phantom of Death of which they have the greatest horror. A rook is of great service when investigating haunted houses as it nearly always gives warning of the appearance of the unknown by violent flappings of the wings, loud croaking and other unmistakable symptoms of terror. Owls, though no less sensitive to super physical influence, are not scared by it. They and bats alone, among the many kinds of animals I have tested, take up their abode in haunted localities and with the utmost sang froid appeared to enjoy the presence of the unknown, even in its most terrifying form. The owl has been associated with the darker side of the unknown longer than any other bird. In the Arundel family, a white owl is said to be a sure indication of death. That Shakespeare attached no little importance to the fatal crying of the bird may be gathered from the scene in Macbeth when the murderer asks, Didst thou not hear a noise? And Lady Macbeth answers, I heard the owl scream and the crickets cry, and the scene in Richard the third, where Richard interrupts a messenger of evil news with the words, out on ye owls, nothing but songs of death. Gray speaks of moping owls, whilst Hogarth introduces the same bird in the murder scene in his four stages of cruelty. Nor is the belief in the sinister prophetic properties of the owl confined to the white races. We find it everywhere, among the red Indians, West Africans, Simees, and Aborigines of Australia. In Cornwall and in other corners of the country, the crowing of a cock at midnight was formally regarded as indicating the passage of death over the house. Also, if a cock crowed at a certain hour for two or three nights in succession, it was thought to be a sure sign of early death to some member of the household. In notes and queries, a correspondent remarks that crowing hens are not uncommon, that their crow is very similar to the crow of a very young cock, and must be taken as a certain presagement of some dire calamity. It was generally held that in all haunted localities, the ghosts would at once vanish, not to appear again till the following night at the first crowing of the cock after midnight. I believe there is a certain amount of truth in this. At all events, cock, as I myself have proved, are invariably sensitive to the presence of the super-physical. The whistler is also a psychic bird. Spencer, in his fairy queens, alludes to it thus. The whistler shrill that whoso hears doth die, while Sir Walter Scott refers to it in a similar sense in his Lady of the Lake. The yellow hammer was formally the object of much persecution since it was believed that it received three drops of the devil's blood on its feather every May morning and never appeared without presaging ill luck. Parrots do not appear to be very susceptible to the influence of the unknown and indicate little or no dread of super-physical demonstrations. Doves, wrens, and robins are birds of good omen, and the many superstitions regarding them are all associated with good luck. Doves, I have found in particular, are very safe psychic barometers in haunted houses. It is almost universally held to be unlucky to kill a robin. A correspondent of Notes and Queries remarks, I took the following down from the mouth of a young minor. My father killed a robin and had terrible bad luck after it. He had at that time a pig which was ready for pipping. She had a litter of seven and they all died. When the pig was killed the two hams went bad. Presently three of the family had a fever and my father himself died of it. The neighbor said it was all through killing the robin. George Smith in his six pastorials, 1770, says, I found a robin's nest within our shed and in the barn a wren has young one's bread. I never take away their nest nor try to catch the old ones lest a friend should die. Dick took a wren's nest from the cottage side and ere a twelve month past his mother died. In Yorkshire it was once firmly believed that if a robin were killed the cows belonging to the family of the destroyer of the bird would for some time only give bloody milk. At one time and perhaps even now the robin and wren out of sheer pity used to cover the bodies of those that died in the woods with leaves. Webster in his tragedy of Vittoria Corumbina 1612 refers to this touching habit of these birds thus call for the robin red breast and the wren since or the shady groves they hover and with leaves and flowers do cover the friendless bodies of unburied men. Not so harmless is the stormy petrol whose advent is looked upon by sailors as a sure sign of an impending storm accompanied by much loss of life. The vulture and eagle obviously on account of their ferocious dispositions often remain earthbound after death and usually select as their haunts spots little frequented by men. From what I have heard they are by far the most malignant of all bird-ghosts and have even been known to inflict physical injury on those who have had the misfortune to pass the night within their allotted precincts. End of Chapter 7 Chapter 8 A Brief Retrospect If I have failed to convince my readers as to the reality of a future existence for all species of mammalia I trust I have at least suggested to them the idea of probability in such a theory. For did the belief that all animals possess imperishable spirits similar to mankind only become general? I feel quite sure that a marked improvement in our treatment of all the so-called brute creation and God alone knows how much such an improvement is needed would speedily result. It is still only the comparative few who are kind to animals. The majority are either wholly indifferent or absolutely cruel but if children were made to realize that even insects have spirits they at least let us hope would cease to take delight in pulling off the wings and legs of flies. Man has hitherto entertained the ridiculously unjustifiable idea that all the animal and insect world has been created solely for his benefit to be killed or to be kept alive entirely at his discretion. Such an absurd and presumptuous belief ought to be exploded once and for all. The animal world, so all sane people must agree, was undoubtedly created to lead the same free untrammeled life as does man himself. Man, save and cunning, is nothing superior either to the dog horse or other mammalia. Indeed, he is not infrequently so inferior that one cannot help thinking that possibly the higher spiritual planes are not for him at all, but for those who, misnamed the lower creation, have surpassed man in spirituality. Let those who doubt this study the super physical all around them. Let them carefully watch animals and observe their propensities, their psychic faculties of scent, sight and hearing. They can easily test them in any house or locality which has a well established reputation for being haunted. They will then see how close a relationship there really is between the animal and the super physical worlds. And if they want further proof, proof of a more material nature, let them search around for some spot stated to be haunted by a ghostly phenomenon in the form of a dog, horse, cat or other animal and investigate there themselves. Such investigations have convinced me, and surely by using these same methods with patience and perseverance other people might also be convinced. At all events, let them try. For a conviction like mine, a conviction that an eternity exists for our canine pets and dumb friends, is certainly worth a lot of striving after. At least, so I think.